BERLIN, October 2. /TASS/. With Norway having withdrawn its bid for hosting the Olympics 2022 in Oslo, there are only two candidates left - Almaty, Kazakhstan’s biggest city, and Beijing, the capital of China.

International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach regretted Norway’s decision and its missed chance to host the Olympic Games.

The deadline for submitting bids to the International Olympic Committee (IOC) expired in November 2013, when six cities became official contenders for hosting the Winter Olympics in 2022. However, three European cities, including Poland’s Krakow, Sweden’s Stockholm and Ukraine’s Lviv have later withdrawn their applications for various reasons. Thus, only three candidates remained – Beijing, Oslo and Almaty.

The winner in the bid to host the 2022 Winter Olympics will be announced on July 31, 2015 at an IOC session in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.